Angel Days
by El Juno
Summary: Pure, unrepentant Daiken fluff, set in the future (MY future...not the canon future...I've started to happily ignore the canon future...) Dai and Ken spend a morning in bed...


I think I like the word "Angel" FAARRR too much..."Angel" and "Love"...and, hey, I use "Angel" for Ken fics and "Love" for Miyako fics. Well, whaddayaknow.  
  
Anyway, this is pure Daiken fluff caused by an excess of Cocteau Twins...placed in the future. My future, not the canon future. Proper background music? Nothing more or less than Cocteau Twins, namely the CD Head Over Heels...which includes the song I refer to in this fic...("In Our Angelhood")  
  
And, before you ask, Kay...Yes. Ken's shampoo is Herbal Essences.  
  
*****  
  
Motomiya Daisuke had had a revelation.  
  
It had come no less than five seconds before, suddenly, like a bolt. It went something like this...  
  
"There will never be another day like this..."  
  
There was that. And there was also...  
  
"There's SO much I miss every day..."  
  
So he was lying in bed...on the mattress thrown on the floor in his apartment, arms wrapped loosely around Ken, eyes closed, just EXPERIENCING and trying to impress every little thing into his memory.  
  
Smell...  
  
Smell.   
  
He missed smell so often.   
  
What was there?   
  
Well, there was the smell of the restaurant downstairs, coming in through the vents, the smell of curry spice, chickpeas and savory meats that could drive him crazy if he gave it half a chance. There was the scent of turpentine and paint from his work...that was a big one...there was the smell of rain in New Orleans, and the sickly brown-green smell of the river water. And there was...  
  
Was...  
  
He moved in close to Ken (curled up tightly, like twins in the womb, Daisuke's arms around Ken from behind, Daisuke's head on Ken's neck, knees fit together like a pair of spoons, arms thrown around Ken's neck) moved his face and buried it gently in Ken's hair. Under the scent of Ken's shampoo (sweet and herbal and golden) he could smell sweat (of course) and the slightest whiff of the bookstore Ken worked at...a smell of incense and dust and old, worm-eaten pages...and, under that, was the secret smell that was KEN'S hair, the special blend of oils and sweat and...whatever else...that made it Ken's hair. And just Ken's.  
  
Sound...  
  
Ah, sound.   
  
With his head moved, Daisuke couldn't hear Ken's heartbeat anymore, but he didn't want to move again and lose Ken's scent, so this was an exercise in and of itself. What else was there?  
  
Well, there was the patter of rain on the windows, and Ken's breathing and...  
  
The music.  
  
Ken's CD.  
  
Ken was lukewarm at best about most modern music (Daisuke knew that Ken had a very carefully hidden place in his heart for Jazz, but he also knew that, with VERY few exceptions, Ken did not like it on CD. He preferred to stand outside some small club and listen to the music swirling into the night, or inside, carefully hugging the wall to avoid the press of bodies.) However, this was something different. Daisuke could remember when Ken had found the CD, long fingers gently playing over the CD case while he told about the band, told what Serena (a friend of Daisuke's, an artist who sold homemade tapes and cat's-eye sunglasses in a stall in the French Market) had told him about the band.  
  
"There are no official lyrics." He had said, gently. "You get out of this music exactly what you put in. You hear what you want to."  
  
Daisuke could scarcely make out the lyrics enough to get anything out...but he heard SOMETHING. Angel...angel days? Wasn't THAT odd. What was an angel day?  
  
An angel day...  
  
How mysterious.  
  
Touch.  
  
THAT was the big one.  
  
Well, it was hot. And humid. And there was a broken spring poking into Daisuke's side. But that wasn't as important as...Ken...  
  
Ken slept mostly clothed, so the body pressed against Daisuke's was mostly swathed in cloth. Soft cotton, denim...even the ankles against Daisuke's toes were in socks (Daisuke had learned during one INCREDIBLY silly night that he could pull Ken's socks off with his toes). The bony thrust of Ken's shoulders was under his arm and Ken's legs were lying against his own, gently pressed...he couldn't feel Ken's skin, though...not much of it...  
  
Touch...  
  
Daisuke brushed his hand down over Ken's chest, over the shirt, down, then under the hem and back up, over the flat, over the ribs, over the soft silky skin and the softest, downiest hair he'd ever encountered in his life. He fluttered his hand up, finding one spot just to the right of Ken's left nipple with unusual ease, a spot where, if he lay his hand flat, he could feel the steady beat of Ken's heart.  
  
Daisuke felt Ken take a breath, knew what he was going to say almost before the words came out.  
  
"What are you doing?" Ken breathed.  
  
"Memorizing you." Daisuke whispered back, trying not to break the whatever-it-was in the room that put him in this mood.  
  
Ken sighed lightly, and Daisuke moved his face again, to the nape of Ken's neck, to a particular spot, and breathed the gentlest kiss he could muster, not wanting to start anything, just wanting...yes. He could feel the short, soft hair there stand on end, bristle against his lips.  
  
Then Daisuke could feel Ken's muscles tensing, and then Ken was rolling away, rolling on to his other side, rolling to face him. Daisuke kept his hand in place, but he relaxed the touch, letting two fingers gently brush the pulse point. He felt Ken's hand touching his cheek. "Why are you memorizing me with your eyes closed?" Ken whispered.  
  
Oh, gods.   
  
There was the rub.  
  
Daisuke, on this odd, one-of-a-kind, never before and never again morning, was actually afraid that he'd open his eyes and find that he'd dreamed Ken up in his sleep, that he would have a hand out in the air. He felt...felt like he had to be sure that Ken was there, in some part of his mind.  
  
Of course, another part was just that Daisuke was so VERY visual (not really surprising, seeing as he was not only a painter, but a very "grounded" human being) and wanted to know everything else about his koi, whose visage he knew by heart, could have drawn in his sleep (and probably had, once or twice.)  
  
He skipped the whole mess and just gently brushed his fingers again over Ken's chest. "Gods." He whispered. "Ken, your skin is SILK."  
  
The hand on his cheek moved back, behind his head, and then, ever so soft, Daisuke could feel Ken's lips petal-soft against his own. Gently, carefully, as if he was touching two live wires together, Daisuke slipped his tongue out and into Ken's mouth, and the sense that had been missing came into play.  
  
Taste.  
  
The first time they'd kissed, even as far back as the age of 12, Daisuke had commented on the salty taste to Ken's mouth. The taste was still there, but rather than popcorn or pretzels, which was what Daisuke had thought of back then, it seemed somehow...warmer. More metallic, too. Not like the salt you'd put on food, but like the salt in ocean water, or inside the body.  
  
In general, Ken's mouth tasted like tears. Gently salty, delicately salty, like he'd just been crying.  
  
Not that Ken's crying was always a BAD thing...Daisuke had known Ken to cry when they were making love, cry these strange little tears of joy, of delight. Daisuke had actually seen his eyes completely overflow at the moment of climax, tears running all the way down Ken's cheeks and dripping off his chin as he mewled and moaned. Those tears tasted different, too, different from the tears of sorrow or fear Ken cried sometimes...those tears, Ken's tears of joy, tasted more metallic, somehow warmer, like copper and nickel. It was weird to think about, really, because it seemed to imply that the state of Ken's soul could change his body chemistry.  
  
Strange, but infinitely cool, Daisuke realized as Ken pulled back. Slowly, reluctantly, Daisuke pulled his hand back off the pulse point and worked his way out from under Ken's shirt. He raised his hand and found Ken's face, began to gently trace those lines, up the curve of the nose, over the graceful sweep of the eyebrow, down, over a shell of an ear, along the curve of the chin, feeling the strength of the cords in his neck, then he hit the collar of that shirt, and the bony thrust of a shoulder encased in hateful cotton, then the arm again, over the spider web tracery of scars, down the bone to the sharp jut of the elbow and then that soft, downy hair all along the bone of the arm, the thin ball of the wrist, delicate and light, then the small bones in the hand, the gentle fingers, the folds of skin over the back of his knuckles, then, gentle as anything, he moved over the smooth nail and over the edge of what had to be the middle finger and back up the other side, feeling the rough pad, the wrinkles in the fingers, the gypsy-lines on the palm, the mound below his thumb, the thin skin on his wrist...then Ken caught his hand and raised it to his lips, those soft lips, and kissed the fingertips, one after the other.  
  
"You never answered." Ken whispered. "Why are your eyes closed?"  
  
"I know what you look like, Ken." Daisuke said. "I could draw you from memory a million times over. I want to know everything else."  
  
Ken's lips brushed his palm gently. "You know me, Daisuke." He whispered. "You know me better than anyone else." Then the lips against his palm grinned devilishly. "Even Ryo."  
  
Daisuke smiled, but didn't rise to the jibe...the reminder that he wasn't Ken's only Jogress partner... "Yeah." He said. "But I still want to know everything I can. I want to know you by heart."  
  
"By heart?" Ken asked.  
  
"By heart." Daisuke said firmly, or at least as firmly as is possible in a whisper.  
  
"When did you become such a poet?" Ken whispered.  
  
"I don't know. I guess you draw it out of me." Then Daisuke's arms found Ken again, and pulled him in for another kiss.  
  
The salt was stronger, the tears were more pronounced. But so was the copper and nickel...the full taste. Ken's mouth tasted like tears of joy.  
  
The CD was still playing that song (did Ken have the song on infinite repeat? Or had Daisuke's explorations taken him the full length of the CD, enough to bring it full-circle? Daisuke wasn't sure.) and Daisuke lay for a second listening. Maybe the words weren't "angel days", maybe it was "angelhood"...or maybe it was both, first "angel days" then "angelhood"...but Daisuke had become enamored. (Not that he would have used the word "enamored") He liked the thought, liked the term. "Angel days"  
  
"It's an angel day." Daisuke whispered, trying out the words. He was much more of a visual person than any form of writer, but he had to admit that there was something...right...to the words. They felt GOOD coming out of his mouth.  
  
"An angel day?" Ken echoed, "You ARE becoming a poet."  
  
"It's your fault." Daisuke whispered, then repeated. "An angel day. Anything can happen. Anything."  
  
Slowly he opened his eyes.  
  
Sight.  
  
Ken lay in front of him, facing him, pale and dark, violet eyes shining slightly, black hair somewhat rumpled and askew, lips rosy. The sheet lay over him, tangled around his waist, and his shirt was pulled halfway up his chest from Daisuke's hands, displaying an almost pure white stomach and chest. There were slight shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep, even though Ken had slept more than Daisuke himself, and one of his arms was crisscrossed by scars.  
  
He was the most beautiful thing Daisuke had ever seen.  
  
"Angel." Daisuke whispered. Then he reached out and pulled Ken close. They kissed again.  
  
Then, slowly, they got up.  
  
In an angel day.  
  
In their angelhood.  



End file.
